Sam Moore – best known as member of the soul and R&B duo Sam & Dave – has died at the age of 89.
Moore influenced iconic musicians including Michael Jackson, Al Green and Bruce Springsteen as he and Dave Prater delivered gritty, gospel-infused performances, often considered one of the greatest live acts of the 1960s.
The duo sang hits including “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” and helped create a resurgence of popularity for soul, R&B, and blues in the 1980s.
But Moore died on Friday morning in Coral Gables, Florida, due to complications while recovering from surgery, his publicist Jeremy Westby said today.
Moore and Prater were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Prior to this, the pair were second only to Otis Redding at the Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records. They transformed the “call and response” of gospel music into a frenzied stage show and recorded some of soul music’s most enduring hits, which also included “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” “When Something is Wrong With My Baby” and “I Thank You.”
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Most Sam & Dave’s hits were written and produced by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter and featured the Stax house band Booker T. & the MGs, whose guitarist Steve Cropper received one of music’s most famous shoutouts when Sam & Dave called “Play it, Steve” midway through “Soul Man.”
Like many ’60s soul acts, Sam & Dave faded after the 1960s. But “Soul Man” hit the charts again in the late 1970s when the Blues Brothers, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, recorded it with many of the same musicians. Moore, from Miami, Florida, had mixed feelings about the hit becoming associated with the “Saturday Night Live” stars, remembering how young people believed it originated with the Blues Brothers.
But it gave Sam & Dave a new lease of life and their success waxed again until the band, formed in Miami, split in 1981. By this point, they’d had two number ones in the US and came to prominence in the UK with Soul Sister Brown Sugar, which reached 15th in our charts.
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